Spinning ring for travelers



y 1958 H. B. ATwooD 2,840,981

SPINNING RING FOR TRAVELERS Filed June 7, 1954 Z4 FIG. 6.

INVENTOR f0 @W. W

BY. @wa M,Mv@m, ATTORNEYS United States Patent 2,840,981 SPINNING RING FOR TRAVELERS Hyatt B. Atwood, Buffalo, N. Y., assignor to Herr Manufacturing Co., Inc., Buffalo, N. Y.

Application June 7, 1954, Serial No. 435,016

3 Claims. (Cl. 57-120) This invention relates generally to spinning rings for travelers but more particularly to improvements in the lubrication of such rings.

One of its objects is to provide the ring with novel means which function as retainers and carriers for delivering the lubricant to the bearing faces of the ring in a positive controlled fashion and over a maximum area of contact as needed to assure longer life to the traveler as well as to produce lighter and more uniform tension on the threads with greater traveler speeds.

Another object of the invention is to provide a hardened steel ring having porous metal inserts, tubes or bushings fitted therein at suitable spaced intervals and adapted for communication with a lubricant and conductor mediums for effectually lubricating, without waste or excess of the lubricant, the traveler-engaging bearing faces of the ring by capillary action stimulated by the turning of the traveler about "the ring.

Other features of the invention reside in the construction and arrangement of parts hereinafter described and particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

In the accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 is a top plan view, partly in section, of a spinning ring embodying my invention. Figures 2 and 3 are enlarged fragmentary cross sections taken on the correspondingly numbered lines in Figure 1. Figure 4 is a fragmentary vertical section taken on line 4-4, Figure 2. Figure 5 is a fragmentary sectional view, similar to Figure 3, showing a modified form of the invention. Figure 6 is a fragmentary vertical section taken on line 66, Figure 5.

Similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views.

Referring now to the drawings, 10 indicates a ringlike holder which is adapted for mounting on the traverse bar of the spinning machine, and 11 indicates the spinning ring fitted in the holder and upon which the traveler 12 revolves. The holder is provided at its outer side with one or more lubricant-receiving wells 13, two being shown for example in Figure l, and each containing a wick 14 immersed therein and extending therefrom through a radial port or duct 15 in the holder and through an aligning radial opening in the ring for conducting the lubricant to the inner bearing surface thereof in the manner to be hereafter described. An annular groove or channel 16 is formed in the inner peripheral face of such holder and enclosed and sealed by the surrounding or contiguous outer face of the ring to form an enclosed lubricant feed chamber. Each Wick 14 intersects this groove and the lubricant is fed by capillary action around the groove to other lubricating points located substantially midway of the diametrically opposite sides of the ring, as shown in Figure l, to provide four lubricating points on the ring in equi-spaced relation. Depending on the side of the ring, fewer or more lubricating points may be provided, and for small rings one lubricating well and two lubricating points should afford proper ring-lubrication.

The ring 11 is preferably made of hardened steel or the like and has a downwardly and outwardly inclined conical bearing face 17 for engagement by the dependent leg of the traveler 12, and a top bearing face 18 against which the head portion of the traveler engages. Located at each lubricating point of the ring and snugly fitted in a substantially radial hole or opening 19 formed therein in the intersecting plane of the holder is a porous or lubricant-absorbing metal bushing or tubular insert 20, made of a sintered metal, such as oilite, whose inner edge is flush with the conical bearing face of the ring. The lubricant is conducted from the wells to these bushing inserts by the feed wicks 14 and conducting groove 16. It will be noted that the diametrically-opposing feed wicks 14 extend through the companion aligning bushings and terminate substantially at the bearing face of the ring to thereby provide with the bushings a lubricant point of maximum area. Fitted in each intervening bushing is a fibrous wick section 21 which adsorbs lubricant from the feed groove 16 and in turn transmits it to the adsorbing bushing from which it bleeds and flows by capillary action onto the inner bearing surface of the ring, with the moving traveler, as it passes the bushing, controlling the positive and controlled flow of the lubricant as needed. The hardened ring protects the encased porous inserts or bushings from wear and there is no carbonization and no excess of oil present.

Lubrication of the top bearing face of the ring is effected by providing substantially upright holes or openings 22 therein exposed on the upper portion of the ring and whose lower ends open into and intersect the companion bushing inserts 20, as shown in Figures 2 and 4. Ftted in each upright hole is a wick element consisting of an axially-extending porous metal insert or strip 23 diametrically spanning such opening and having a fibrous section 24- Wrapped about the same and occupying the resulting spaces defined by the strip at opposite sides of the hole and in lubricant conducting relation at its lower end with the companion horizontal feed wick section. If

desired, the lower end of each strip may be forked, as shown in Figure 4, to straddle the companion horizontal wick section, thereby effectually retaining both wick sections in place.

In the modification shown in Figures 5 and 6, the upright holes for lubricating the top bearing face of the ring are fitted with porous metal bushings 25 like those associated with the vertical bearing face of the ring.

I claim as my invention:

1. A spinning ring for travelers, comprising a hard ened metal body having openings transversely thereof intersecting the traveler bearing face of the ring, tubular inserts of lubricant-adsorbing porous metal fitted in said openings and exposed at their inner ends in flush relation to the bearing face of the ring, wicks fitted in said inserts and extending substantially to said inner ends thereof, and a holder for the ring-body extending about the same and having an annular lubricant feed channel therein to which said Wicks and the outer ends of said inserts are exposed.

2. A spinning ring for travelers, comprising a hardened metal body having openings transversely thereof intersecting the traveler bearing face of the ring, tubular inserts of lubricant-adsorbing porous metal fitted in said openings and exposed at their inner ends in flush relation to the bearing face of the ring, a holder for the ringbody extending about the same and having an annular lubricant feed channel therein to which the outer ends of said inserts are exposed, and wick elements fitted in said tubular inserts and in operative relation to said lubricant feed channel.

3. A spinning ring for travelers, comprising a hardened metal body having inner and top bearing faces for the traveIer andhaving intersecting communicating openings therein extending to and opening onto such faces, and inserts of lubricant-adsorbing porous metal fitted in said. openings for communication at their opposing ends with a source of lubricant supply and having their other ends exposed'to the companion bearing faces of the ring in flush relation thereto, certain of said inserts being tubular and having lubricant-conducting Wick elements fitted therein and, other of said inserts being in the form of a strip extending axially through a companion opening in diametric relation thereto and having Wick elements extending; along the opposite sides thereof.

References Cited the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Albrecht June 22, Calkins Apr. 30, Stahl Mar. 4, Fillinger May 12, Hensel et a1. Mar. 27, Atwood et al May 17,

FOREIGN PATENTS Great Britain Apr. 18,

Germany Jan. 27,

CERTIFICATE OF CQRRECTIDN .Patent No.v 2,840,981 July 1, 1958 Hyatt Bo Atwood It is hereby certified that error appears in the printed specification of the above numbered patent requiring correction and that the said Letters Patent should read as corrected below.

Column 1, line 69, for "Depending on the side of" read me Depending on the size of Signed and sealed this 9th day of September 1958 SEAL) ttest:

KARL AXLINE ROBERT c. WATSON Attesting ()flicer Commissioner of Patents 

